Utah athletics reports $17M deficit following Pac-12 Comcast payback, move to Big 12


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KEY TAKEAWAYS
  • The University of Utah's athletics program faces a $17 million deficit for 2024.
  • This deficit is due to the Pac-12 Comcast overpayment settlement and Big 12 transition.
  • Despite financial challenges, football and men's basketball remain profitable, with increased ticket sales.

SALT LAKE CITY — As the University of Utah navigated the turbulent waters of an ever-changing landscape of conference realignment, several external factors resulted in the school's athletic program reporting a $17 million deficit for the 2024 fiscal year.

The department, which had made a profit the last two years after a $31 million loss during COVID, was met with challenges not totally within its control for the fiscal year ranging from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024.

The biggest disruptor? The Pac-12 fiasco that resulted in Comcast overpaying conference members for several years. An internal audit by Comcast in the summer of 2022 unearthed the overpayments that were known internally within the Pac-12 since late 2017.

As a result, each school was forced to take a cut of its 2024 fiscal year revenue following a settlment. And in Utah's case, that resulted in a nearly $10.4 million swing in revenue from the fiscal year prior, according to the most recent revenue and expense form that was recently published.

The university went from receiving approximately $2.5 million in conference (non media and non football bowl) distributions in the 2023 fiscal year to owing nearly $7.9 million a year later as the largest single contributor to the deficit to the year's athletic budget.

Additionally, the university did not receive revenue payments previously owed to the university as part of a separate settlement with Oregon State and Washington State after Utah and other schools exited the Pac-12 to join the Big 12, Big Ten and ACC.

As part of that settlement, at least $5 million was withheld as part of a $50 million deal, with an additional $1.5 million owed in "supplemental contribution" to the conference.

In an addendum published by the university, officials with the university said outside of the previously mentioned external factors, in addition to legal fees, "travel costs and a significant year-over-year increase in the university's published cost of attendance were other major contributing and uncontrollable factors" to the year's deficit.

The deficit, the university said, was covered by athletics reserves from previous years.

Universities across the country have experienced major deficits this past year, including Ohio State ($37.7 million deficit), Michigan State ($16.7 million), UCLA ($51.8 million) Missouri ($15.2 million) and Alabama ($28 million), among others.

Though the deficit for Utah was compounded by the Comcast overpayments and its departure to the Big 12, the university said other "key revenue performance indicators," which included ticket sales and donations, improved from the previous year. To that point, the university made just over $14.8 million in ticket sales between all sports, which is just shy of a $2 million increase from the previous fiscal year.

As is the case most years, football and men's basketball were the only profitable sports for the university, which is consistent with most Power Four programs across the country.

Even with the nearly $8 million owed back in the Comcast settlement, the football program brought in $79 million in revenue and had just over $52 million in expenses, equating to approximately $27 million in profit. Men's basketball recorded approximately $12.9 million, while having just over $10.3 million in expenses.

In the 2023 fiscal year, the football program reached a university record $92.5 million in revenue and $51.8 million in expenses, for a $40.7 million profit. Men's basketball brought in approximately $16.6 million, while having nearly $12.8 million in expenses.

Every other sport, outside of lacrosse and volleyball, had a larger deficit than the previous fiscal year report.

To see the full NCAA revenue and expense report see below or click here.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Josh is the sports director at KSL.com and beat writer covering University of Utah athletics — primarily football, men’s and women's basketball and gymnastics. He is also an Associated Press Top 25 voter for college football.

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